


Point To One End, Which Is Always Present.

by Gleaming_Spires (cuppaktea)



Series: Nor Custom Stale [2]
Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-30 01:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15086441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuppaktea/pseuds/Gleaming_Spires
Summary: Dakin and Irwin meet in 2003. The outcome ultimately depends on the people they've become.Written as part of a pair, this follows on from canon from the film.





	Point To One End, Which Is Always Present.

**Author's Note:**

> Picking up from the end of the film...(surely it's not just me who thinks that Dakin sounds like he's ridiculously lonely in that 'I make lots of money' bit)
> 
>  
> 
> This is too long and very wordy but I'm so tired and I accidentally wrote it at bedtime while trying to work on another fic so please be gentle. I apologise for any glaring errors.
> 
> Title shamelessly robbed from T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton

 

 

Dakin is surprised when, one perfectly ordinary morning, he receives an invitation to a funeral delivered to his office. The surprise isn’t at the news that Mrs Lintott is dead even though it’s the first he’s heard of it – she must have been in her eighties at least and these things are to be expected - but rather that anybody thought to invite him. He hasn’t had much to do with her over the past twenty years and doesn’t know any of her family.

 

In spite of his surprise, he’s oddly pleased. He remembers Totty fondly and there’s a satisfaction with the knowledge that the feeling was mutual. On enquiry, he finds out that she had wanted all of ‘her boys’ to attend, and so invites have been sent to each of them.

 

He isn’t absolutely set on going at first, but a quick glance at the diary reveals he’s (unusually) free for the entire weekend of the funeral and it seems almost like fate, so he books a train ticket and a hotel and calls Scripps.

 

*****

 

The large photograph displayed beside the coffin shows a frail, white-haired lady he hardly recognises.

 

As far as he’s aware the only members of the congregation from the school are his six old school friends - an emotional stab in the gut accompanies the knowledge (ever present when they’re together) that there’s someone missing: they are incomplete, and always will be, without Jimmy. Each of them acknowledges his absence with a sad smile and downcast eyes as they shuffle into a row together.

 

A quick glance around the church before the service begins reveals nobody else Dakin knows by name, although there are a few vaguely familiar faces.

 

There’s a latecomer, just as the first hymn finishes, the creak of the ancient door betrays their entrance and he half turns in his seat to see Irwin taking a seat near the back. He’d almost forgotten about him.

 

It’s a shock at first; seeing him so drastically older, but on second glance Irwin doesn’t look bad for his age. The boyishness about his face has gone leaving him rather gaunt, but overall forty-five sits well on him.

 

Almost unnoticed, the thought drifts through Dakin’s mind that Irwin’s a better prospect than half of his most recent dates have been: he’s still got all of his hair, even if it isn’t as thick as he recalls, and the owlish eyes that Dakin remembers are unchanged behind new large tortoiseshell frames.

 

Lately, Dakin’s love life has hit something of a rough patch. The men have been either balding or sporting a beer gut (if he’s lucky); as a rule, the women look after their appearance but invariably have at least three kids under ten. While the obvious solution is to look for someone younger than himself, the last twenty-year-old he went out with was so vacuous he was tempted to commit suicide with the steak knife half way through dinner. He hasn’t ventured outside his own age group since.

 

He finds Irwin at the wake, of course. It isn’t intentional; they’re both just going to the bar at the same time. They’re chatting like old friends before their drinks even arrive. To Dakin at least, it’s as if they had only parted ways yesterday, it’s so _easy_ just talking to him.

 

And yet there are differences. He remembers Irwin as being nervy and cautious, full of arrogance, and split between showing off and jumping at his own shadow. The man sitting in front of him now is neither flaunting his talents nor cringing away from him. Instead, he chats with an easy, forced casualness; his insecurities much better hidden.

 

It’s the first time in a long time that Dakin is _interested_ in someone, in what they have to say, in what they’ve been doing with their life, in their small talk and silly jokes, in making himself interesting to someone else.

 

They move from the bar to a tucked away table. In between trying to smother their grins and giggles among the mourners, Dakin wrestles with the desperate desire to be friends – it feels like it’s trying to claw it’s way up his throat and make him say stupid, embarrassingly eager things. It’s a relief when silence is called for the speeches and he can work to regain some of his cool, even if it is an effort to keep quiet all the way through.

 

“I was surprised to see you here.” He confesses as most of the assembled mourners tuck into the buffet.

 

“Same.” Irwin smiles at him. “You look exactly the same.”

 

“No.” Dakin demurs, ridiculously pleased by the almost-compliment. “My hair’s starting to go grey.”

 

Irwin rolls his eyes. “Oh dear, you poor thing.” He says, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

 

“Do you fancy going somewhere less…”

 

“Wakey? Yeah, that’d be great.”

 

*****

 

“I’m on the telly now.” Irwin tells him over Italian. “Maybe you’ve seen.”

 

“Sorry no, not a big telly watcher. I did hear though.”

 

“Right.” Irwin looks disappointed - like he would have appreciated Dakin’s opinion of his career, God knows why.

 

“Scrippsy says it’s vulgar.” He offers, feeling only a tinge of guilt at having left Scripps along with his other friends at the wake without saying goodbye.

 

Irwin shrugs “it’s informative too. Shock value sells well, besides it gets people talking.”

 

Dakin grins and pours him a glass of wine.

 

“You’d know all about that though.” Irwin smiles, taking a sip. “ _’suck me off’,_ indeed.”

 

“That wasn’t exactly for shock value - although that helped. Blame it more on lack of finesse.” He fiddles with one of his cufflinks, embarrassed by his teenage self and his painfully clumsy come-ons.

 

“So it was… what?”

 

“Attraction, mainly.” He answers, honestly. “Previously untapped desire - not that it stayed that way. I’m more of a part-time heterosexual these days; I even had a boyfriend for a year. I thought that might be the big turning point, but I was still interested in the ladies afterwards, so I suppose I’m odd like that.”

 

Irwin nods, looking thoughtful.

 

“Why?” He laughs. “You going to take me up on it?”

 

Irwin shakes his head as if Dakin were serious. “I’m over that now.” He says, the look on his face daring Stu to call him out on the obvious lie.

 

“So is there someone?”

 

Irwin grins into his drink. “I’ve been happily commitment-free for three years now…You?” he asks it almost as an afterthought, as if fearing he’d seem rude unless he feigned an interest.

 

“Too busy at the moment.” Dakin lies, mortified at the thought of coming across as yet another middle-aged workaholic wanker with nothing but a string of failed relationships to pass for a personal life.

 

They sip their drinks in silence, the atmosphere becoming a bit strained as they each feign casual disinterest.

 

*****

 

They linger over their drinks until nearly midnight. Irwin is driving so he sticks (rather ridiculously) to lemonade after one glass of wine.

 

“I don’t really want to call it a night.” Dakin admits, quietly.

 

“I’m sure there’s somewhere open, a bar or something…Oh. Oh, did you mean…?”

 

“For old times sake?”

 

Irwin holds his gaze. “I told you I’m not interested any more.”

 

“Yeah, but you’re still a bad liar.”

 

Irwin blushes furiously and ducks his head to hide it. “You want to come back with me?”

 

“No.”

 

Irwin’s head flies up in shock, he looks devastated with embarrassment.

 

“My place is nicer.” Dakin explains with a smirk.

 

Recovering quickly, Irwin laughs.

 

“Yeeeah, for some reason your mum’s spare room isn’t somewhere I fancy.”

 

Dakin pulls an expression of disgust. “I’m not staying with my mum!”

 

Irwin frowns in confusion, in fact, he looks a little bit appalled on behalf of Mrs Dakin. “Why not?”

 

“My mum’s retired, she lives in Spain.”

 

“Oh, obviously.” Irwin smirks.

 

“I’m in a five-star hotel.”

 

“In _Sheffield_?”

 

“Will you stop taking the piss and just say yes?”

 

He does, of course.

 

Dakin summons the waiter and pays the bill and the tip before Irwin has a chance to get his wallet out, let alone argue.

 

“You shouldn’t have.” Irwin insists, as they leave, the waiter gratefully locking up behind them.

 

“It’s fine, I’m rich.”

 

*****

 

Irwin’s car is like him: functional, presentable, but unobtrusive and painfully unfashionable. Dakin thinks lovingly of his sleek BMW back in London.

 

Irwin drives in silence, lips pursed, occasionally adjusting his glasses on his nose. Dakin lets him think and confines his conversation to directions.

 

“Did you... is this planned?” Irwin asks eventually, eyes determinedly on the road.

 

“I had no idea you’d even be there.”

 

“I mean, not necessarily with _me_.”

 

“Oh yeah, old ladies funerals, who doesn’t expect to score?”

 

Irwin’s lips quirk up and he takes an exit away from the city centre at the next roundabout.

 

Dakin frowns quizzically at him as, unprompted, he pulls into the car park of the 24-hour Asda.

 

“I’m not a big funeral puller either.” He says by way of explanation, nodding toward the shop.

 

Dakin grins in understanding.

 

“Too shy to ask _‘do I have condoms?’_ are we, sir?”

 

“I’d forgotten how romantic you are.” Irwin tries to smother a grin as they both climb out of the car.

 

The harsh, bright fluorescent strip lighting in the pharmacy section makes no allowance for day or night and the radio is on, graveyard shift dreck piped in for the shoppers.

 

For some reason, Dakin’s reminded forcibly of the time that he and his ex-fiancée made a similar trip, years ago, because she thought she was pregnant and couldn’t wait until the next day to find out. The test they’d bought had been negative, and so had the spare and he’d held her all night as she cried and promised her that they would try again. Six months later she’d left him for a bloke called Harold. He remembers the fresh sense of bitter relief at their inability to conceive that had washed over him after she’d gone.

 

He swallows hard to clear the memory as, beside him, Irwin frowns and chews his thumbnail while he peruses the limited choice of personal lubricants.

 

He digs a twenty out of his pocket and tries to hand it to Irwin (who has finally finished staring at the three available products like they’re a seeing eye picture).

 

“Dakin, I have money.” He smiles.

 

“My name’s Stuart.” Dakin tells him, not sure why it suddenly matters so much what Irwin calls him.

 

Irwin doesn’t take the piss though, just nods.

 

The woman ahead of them in the queue is talking the ear off the one available staff member about a colicky baby. Irwin catches his eye and smiles nervously.

 

The memory of that old failed relationship still floats around Dakin’s mind and he wonders why he’s obsessing over it now – he hasn’t spoken to the woman in six years, hasn’t thought about her in five, and it’s hardly putting him in the mood.

 

It takes a while to identify the unaccustomed sensation welling up in his stomach and stirring up his thoughts - clouding them with emotional sediment, but it’s unmistakable once he realises: Stuart Dakin is nervous. It’s not at all pleasant.

 

He loosens his tie and glances around at the clinical windowless surroundings.

 

“I’ll wait in the car.” He tells Irwin with another tight smile.

 

Five minutes later and Irwin joins him, handing him the little paper bag and once more stubbornly refusing to take the offered banknote. It’s reminiscent of his mother going out for lunch with her mates.

 

“Go on because we’re both going to use it –“

 

“I don’t mind.”

 

“Yeah, but I **do.** ”

 

“Why?” Irwin laughs.

 

“Because.”

 

Irwin’s eyes widen, egging him on to explain.

 

“I’m a man.”

 

“I wouldn’t be going back to your hotel with you if you weren’t.” Irwin’s eyes sparkle with humour.

 

“Men pay for this sort of stuff. Women get stuff bought for them.”

 

Irwin blinks a few times while he sorts it out in his head. Dakin rolls his eyes at the theatrics.

 

“You think because I bought them I won’t let you go on top?”

 

Dakin huffs in annoyance. “Don’t say it like that, it sounds ridiculous.”

 

“It is ridiculous.”

 

Irwin laughs again and then, rather unexpectedly, leans across and kisses him.

 

“I don’t mind, we can do what you want, or - not. Although for the record, I don’t usually… the first time.”

 

Dakin nods. He’d suspected as much.

 

“Control freak.” He teases, the kiss somehow working wonders to de-stress him.

 

Irwin just raises a challenging eyebrow at him and starts the engine. “Where’s this **five-star** hotel then?”

 

*****

  

When Dakin returns to work on Monday he is far happier and more relaxed than a funeral should ever have made him. In fact, he catches his secretary giving him a few odd looks.

 

Scripps’s response to the news that Totty’s funeral has been the highlight of his year is to say he’ll pray for him. Finding out why Dakin derived such enjoyment from it apparently doesn’t dampen his horror.

 

“She’d be pleased!” Dakin insists. “She liked me, she liked Irwin, and I reckon she was a dark horse on the sly.”

 

“You shagged him at her _funeral_.”

 

“Not _at_ her funeral. After it.”

 

“I’m begging you to re-evaluate your life choices.”

 

*****

 

Dakin isn’t the type to ordinarily have any problems concentrating at work but his mind keeps drifting back to the events of the weekend:

 

Of the stilted way in which they had stood facing each other after the hotel room door closed. Of how Irwin had tried to appear unimpressed by the lavish room, and how Dakin would have believed him except he already knows Irwin’s a pathological liar, so doesn’t.

 

Of the awkwardness of leaning in for a kiss at the same time as Irwin half turned away to gesture towards the bathroom and ask permission to use the facilities - Of how Dakin had wanted to laugh at him for being so absurd and tease him by asking ‘ _didn’t he shower that morning_?’ (because he just _knows_ Irwin is self-conscious and wants to freshen up) only they don’t know each other well enough – how Dakin suddenly desperately wished that they did.

 

Of Irwin’s muted disappointment at finding Dakin lying naked on the bed when he returned. The quiet murmur of: “I was hoping to undress you” that unexpectedly made Dakin’s stomach flip.

 

Of the way that Irwin was, perversely, embarrassed at being the only one dressed. How Dakin had hauled him over to lie on the bed and helped him shed his suit.

 

Of running his hands through soft, sandy hair, threaded through with silver, before reaching up to remove ridiculous oversized glasses.

 

He finds himself thinking of other things too, even more annoyingly: of Irwin’s silly smile when he was really pleased; the way the sunlight had caught his eyes in the morning and made them appear dazzlingly blue, unobscured by his glasses; the unexpected dirty jokes he’d told at dinner; the thoughtful little frown that appeared whenever Dakin said something particularly brilliant.

 

Dakin finds his fingers frequently inching toward his mobile where Irwin’s number now sits among his contacts. Eventually, he shuts it in his desk drawer and nearly misses an important call from his biggest client.

 

His good mood has evaporated by the end of the day without a peep from Irwin.

 

By Friday the number of messages on his phone under Irwin’s name is still stubbornly zero and he’s growling at everyone – he hears the office girls speculating that _maybe men do get time of the month after all_ in giggling whispers.

 

*****

 

“Why hasn’t he called?” He demands of Scripps, sulkily, when they meet for a pint on Saturday.

 

“Why haven’t you?” Scripps shoots back lazily, barely listening.

 

“I never call. I’m not the calling type.”

 

“Maybe he isn’t either.” Scripps shrugs.

 

Dakin knows it makes sense, is vaguely aware he’s being childish, but he doesn’t give in, doesn’t call or text, and after two weeks of silence he gives up hope of ever hearing from Irwin again. He can’t quite bring himself to delete the number though.

 

*****

 

 _Twenty years without meeting and we run into each other twice in a month_. He thinks moodily.

 

A friend’s housewarming is the unexpected setting this time.

 

“How do you know Irwin?”

 

His friend looks puzzled and Dakin nods to where Irwin is chatting easily to a gang of women, including the host’s wife.

 

“Oh, Tom? He works with Jayne at the Beeb.”

 

“Of course he does.”

 

“Do you know each other?”

 

“Only slightly.”

 

He hasn’t been spotted and after more than three weeks of being ignored Dakin isn’t going to go over.

 

Across the room, Irwin laughs at something and Dakin’s stomach betrays him by doing another giddy little flip.

 

“Why don’t you give me the tour?” He asks his friend instead.

 

Inevitably, they run into each other. Dakin emerges from the downstairs loo to find him waiting outside. Irwin’s face, when he spots him, is priceless but Dakin doesn’t stop to chat, just offers a quick smile and hopes he managed not to appear similarly rattled.

 

To Dakin’s surprise, Irwin seeks him out five minutes later and starts chatting animatedly about anything and everything. Dakin is left wondering if the poor man’s suffered some form of memory loss again or if perhaps Irwin has a twin he never mentioned.

 

“I’m sorry, what’s going on here?” He asks, interrupting an anecdote about filming a piece about Gandhi on location in India that resulted in the whole crew having chronic stomach upsets.

 

Irwin blinks in confusion. “We’re at a housewarming party. I’m friends with Jayne, you’re apparently a friend of her husband’s.”

 

“Brilliant, very concise, and what about the part where you’ve been pretending I don’t exist for a month and have now apparently forgotten about us sleeping together?’

 

Irwin does a sort of flinch. “Sorry I…” That appears to be all he’s got because he stops talking.

 

“It’s not that I mind as such, I’m just confused about the nature of our acquaintance exactly. Half an hour ago I would have confidently said you didn’t want to know. Now, ostensibly, we’re pretty chummy, which is odd. Even more confusing though, a month ago I thought you were interested in something more.”

 

Irwin stares at him, his face pale before mumbling: “Excuse me” and walking away.

 

Under his breath, Dakin curses himself.

 

Irwin makes his excuses and goes home almost immediately, and half an hour later Dakin does the same.

 

Once he gets home, Dakin does what he always does in situations like these: he phones Scripps. After reminding him (as usual) that he isn’t a therapist, Scripps listens and is very helpful (as usual), even if he does put Dakin in his place a little.

 

“So you didn’t call because you, almighty Stuart Dakin, are above such things on principle, but when he doesn’t call he’s an arsehole who deserves to be publicly called out on it? Do you see the flaw in your logic?”

 

“Yeah, but I never said I would.”

 

“Did he?”

 

“I think so.” Now he thinks of it, actually, Dakin isn’t so sure.

 

After hanging up with Scripps, Dakin is ready to fall into bed. When the phone rings less than five minutes later, he picks up without looking at the screen, too tired and disappointed to assume it’s anything other than Scripps calling him back.

 

“Yeah, I know I need to grow up.”

 

Silence greets him.

 

“Scrippsy?”

 

There’s the sound of a throat clearing before Irwin’s voice quavers down the line. “The thing is, I thought that was it.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Oh, sorry, it’s Tom.”

 

“I know who it is, what did you mean?”

 

“What happened at the funeral. I assumed it was a once off.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know, Mr I-don’t-have-the-time-for-a-relationship-right-now.” Irwin says, his voice growing stronger and more confident with his annoyance. “Mr Do-you-fancy-it-for-old-time’s-sake.”

 

Put like that it didn’t make him sound exactly love-struck.

 

“I didn’t call because I didn’t think you’d want me to. I have enough pride not to want to come across as some desperate stalker, thanks very much. **You** didn’t call and I thought that meant ‘ _Thanks Tom, we’re done’_ – pretty loud and clear. When I saw you tonight though I presumed we were still friendly.”

 

Fuck, he sounds so defeated.

 

“I’m an idiot.”

 

“Possibly.”

 

“I don’t call people.” Dakin tries to explain.

 

“…But you’re angry at me?”

 

“I told you I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean - I wasn’t trying to tell you anything that night, I just didn’t want to sound like a total sad act for being single.”

 

Irwin laughs. “Jesus!”

 

“I’d like to see you again… as more than friends. That is if I haven’t blown it.”

 

“You have, but like I say, I thought that was a once off.” Tom says, a smile in his voice.

 

Dakin laughs then steels himself with a deep breath. “Would you like to have dinner with me sometime this week?”

 

He waits with bated breath while Irwin hesitates.

 

“I won’t even be a dick about the bill, we can split it.”

 

“I’ll pay.”

 

Dakin sighs. “Fine.”

 

“And you call the next day or I’m done.”

 

“Ok”

 

“Ok. I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> It always struck me in the final scene of the film that Irwin and Dakin seem to pick up where they left off pretty easily, with Irwin still drawn to Dakin and straight away sitting down next to him, and Dakin sitting up and taking notice before turning to chat to Irwin as Mrs Lintott continues talking. 
> 
> As she starts that speech by wondering where they’ll all be at her funeral I thought I’d run with that – sorry Totty, I didn’t mean to kill you!


End file.
